University of Virginia Library

With Friendship's sacred name my song broke off;—
With Friendship's sacred name shall it resume
Its onward course,—not now on boyish sports,
And boyish cares intent, but borne along
(If from its subject it may yet receive
A kindred impulse) by the swelling flood
Of youthful passion through the veins diffused,
And vigorous thought new-born, and hope unquench'd
By sad experience, lighting up the eye
With gleams which seem prophetic—and are not.
Friend, whom in Granta's academic halls
First met, soon loved—thenceforward to my side
Fast bound by poesy's free-masonry
And mutual veneration for a name
To me most sacred, and by thee beloved
With all a son's affection—Friend, who now
These more than twenty years, with thy profound
And fervent spirit, hast supported mine,—
Transferring whatsoe'er can be transferr'd
From thy rich depths of intellectual wealth
Into this lighter and more sterile soil,
Which yields but scant return;—to thee this strain,
A monument to long departed youth,
I consecrate:—To whom indeed on Earth
If not to thee, my earliest Poet-friend,
Should song of mine be offer'd?—Who but thou,
With earnest converse and assiduous zeal
Of sympathy,—neglectful of the gift
On thee more richly lavish'd,—fann'd in me
The spark of youthful phantasy?—to whom,
If not to thee, is due on my behalf
A debt of deepest gratitude for all
That, in time past, my soul hath ever felt
Of hope and joy poetic?—Small indeed
The fruit of all thy culture:—those long years
Of absence, during which we lived and wrought
In distant vineyards, seem'd to wither up
Whate'er brief promise of more healthful song
Thy care had caused to germinate;—and now,—
When Providence once more hath brought us near
Each to the other,—'tis too late to call
Lost seasons back:—but I have deeper debts
To thee than such as these, and there are bonds
More sacred, knitting fast thy heart to mine,
Than even the electric chain of phantasy:—
Warm sympathies cementing each with each
In joys and sorrows of the world that is;—
Remembrances, now sweet, of conflicts once
Most bitter, but at length with triumph crown'd,
And still imparting to our noon of life
Its best of earthly joys;—the mutual love
Of those respectively beloved by both
Beyond all else that breathes;—and (more than all)
Our hope in worlds to come—our task in this;
For we are, both, ambassadors for Christ,
And thou high honour'd in His English Church
Among her theologians;—in thyself,
No meanly skill'd expounder of her creed,—
Nor worthy of less honour, for that thou
Interpretest the mystic mind of One,
The mightiest thinker of these latter days.
For such, thy late achievements—how much more
Than for whate'er of high philosophy
Or art poetic, in our youthful days,
I from thy lips derived—am I become
Thy glad and grateful debtor.—Thou alone,
With stedfast gaze intent, hast well discern'd,
Through all the mists of error which bedim
Her heavenly features, the true spouse of Christ:—
Not that stern phantom, which, on Isis banks,
Enthusiasts have beheld, and in devout
And abject error worshipp'd—a severe
And loveless idol, from men's sympathies
And craving hearts estranged,—in garb of power
And terrible authority array'd,—
O'erbearing Reason's clear uplifted voice
With frown dogmatic, and converting Faith
Itself into a blind credulity
Most slavish and idolatrous;—not such
The vision thou hast seen, nor (falser yet)
That hard-eyed spectre, by the will of man
Engender'd,—altogether of the earth
And earthy,—which the laws of human realms
Create, and can at pleasure uncreate.
Not this,—not such as this, the Church of Christ,
Seen and with master hand pourtray'd by thee,—
But one, who on her fair and ample brow
Bears the bright impress of Divinity;—
No step-dame, but a mother of brave sons
With all a mother's heart,—the nurse and guide
Of Faith and Reason,—of celestial Truth
The guardian and the witness.—In thy page,
Well reason'd, pregnant with profoundest thought,
I, an unworthy student, seem to hold
Communion with thy spirit afar off;
And sitting at thy feet, as I was wont
In earlier days, with willing mind imbibe
Instruction which makes smooth the way to death.

We are alone:—none other now on Earth
Shares our full bond of friendship.—One there was,
Beloved by both, and who repaid our love
As only natures of the purest mould
Repay the love of others.—Full two years
Have past since we consign'd him to the grave
In life's unripen'd prime,—and still it seems
As if we could not think of him as dead;—
The immortality which dwelt in him
So swallow'd up the mortal.—Yet 'tis true,
“The good die first;” and his celestial part
Was purged so nearly of all earth's alloy,
That 'twere, in us, most selfish to have wish'd
That he would tarry in our homes of clay.
Yet few there were, perchance, but thou and I,
And one,—his own by more especial ties,—
One fondlier cherish'd in his heart of hearts,—
Few but we three, who knew the wondrous depths
Of that mysterious spirit.—To the world
He veil'd, beneath a smooth and smiling brow,
Its fathomless abyss,—with flippant jest,
And poignant sarcasm, and sly equivoque,
And many a coruscation, bright though brief,
Of wit, and humour more akin than wit
To genius—drawing off intrusive eyes
From that intensity of human love
And that most deep and tender sympathy
Close guarded in the chambers of his heart.
His generation knew him not;—he seem'd
To worldly men a trifler,—and when years,
Correcting the rash fervour of his youth,
Taught him to honour much which once he scorn'd,
And guard what he had panted to o'erthrow—
Men deem'd such seeming fickleness the fruit
Of falsehood or caprice, and factious tongues
Were busy to defame him:—he, meanwhile,
Through honour and dishonour, through report
Evil and good,—by rash, misjudging men
Accounted a deceiver, though most true
And strong in his integrity,—maintain'd
His course unalter'd, and in vain assail'd
By obloquy and slander.—Death hath nipp'd
His promise in the bud, or he had rank'd
Among our noblest statesmen, and perchance
Proved to the Church, in this distracted realm,
Her ablest champion in her utmost need.
As such let Her bewail him!—but to us
He leaves a deeper sorrow;—Can that hour
E'er pass away from memory, when we two
With that highminded lady, hand in hand
Knelt by his coffin, till her deeper grief
At last found vent in tears, and we conversed
Of him, and what he was, and what he is,
In words of solemn calmness?—or that morn,
When, one by one, into the room of death,
Hung with funereal black, the mourners stole,—
A sad and silent crowd, by various ties,
Public and private, join'd to him in life,—
All grieving for him dead.—The statesman there
Forgot the war of factions, nor refused
To his untimely loss some natural tears;—
The pale-eyed scholar side by side was seen
With men of wordy strife, who for a day
Suspended their forensic rivalries
To weep upon his grave;—the merchant left
His counting-house,—and friends who had not met
For many a year before, met there to mourn
A nobler friend than all.—She too, his own—
His almost more than wife, (if more there be
In this cold world), regardless of the laws
Of tyrant custom, came with tearless eye
And brow erect, though pale almost as his,
To give him to the grave:—through busy streets
Slowly and sadly moved the funeral train,
Until within the cemetery gates
At length it halted, and the solemn words
Of our sublimest ritual rendered back
Dust to its dust—the spirit to the hands
Of Him who gave it:—painful to the ear
Was that dull, grinding, subterraneous sound
Of some unseen machinery, which, with slow
Scarce visible descent, received the Dead
Into the opening bosom of the earth;
And deep the desolation which oppress'd
Our spirits—the dejection which we felt,
When we (the three who loved and mourn'd him most)
Together bent our steps into the vault
To bid our last farewell.—Between long rows
Of dead, each coffin'd in its separate niche,
Tier above tier—a subterranean vault
Of sepulchres—we walk'd, until we came
To his dark narrow home;—the charnel gusts
Smote close and chill,—our tread, with hollow sound,
Fell echoing, till (the wholesome upper air
And cheerful light of day once more regain'd)
With aching hearts we parted, to renew
Our troubled Dream of Life.

A dream indeed,—
A feverish waking dream—more shadowy still
The longer that it lasts!—Whate'er in youth
Seem'd real, ere our middle age arrives,
Even like a phantom vanishes away,
Or crumbles in our grasp.—Our life itself—
Which once appear'd as if 'twould never end—
Is found to be a shadow, soon to flit
Away, and be forgotten;—even the schemes—
The air-built castles of our early days—
That vigorous hope with which we look'd abroad
Into the opening world—that confidence
In the bright-seeming future, by no fear
Of change or chance diminish'd—were in truth
More tangible possessions in themselves
Than the realities of later life.
And such were thine and mine when first we met
(A freshman thou, and I a junior soph,)
In the Old Court at King's. Unlike, till then,
Had been our several nurtures, each to each;
Thou, from thy birth, a hardy mountaineer,
A poet's child, thyself a Poet born,
And cradled among minds of giant mould,
Hadst, almost with thy mother's milk, imbibed
Philosophy, which with thy growth had grown,
And with thy strength been strengthen'd:—in the north—
A wanderer among lakes and mighty hills—
Scarce conscious e'en of such restraint as curbs
The southern schoolboy—thou hadst kept unstain'd
Thy spirit's freshness and simplicity;
And, in thy native strength of intellect,
O'erleaping the strait bounds of puny thought
Which circumscribed the realm in which we moved,
(Weak jinglers of hexameters,) could'st breathe
In worlds beyond our ken;—I, train'd and taught
In academic craft, and, for my feats
Poetic, with Etonian laurel crown'd—
A schoolboy bard, with schoolboy lore imbued,
And thinking like a schoolboy—what was I,
That I should match with thee?—yet match'd we were,
If not in genius, yet in sympathy;
Each reverencing what the other reverenced—each
Still loving whatsoe'er the other loved;
Our hopes, our aspirations, our desires,
Our plans and projects for the years to come,
Akin, if not identical:—the world
As yet was all before us—the young blood
Ran riot in our veins,—we felt our life
Strong, buoyant, full of hope—and we were free
To “frame” whate'er “high purposes” we would
Of intellectual enterprise, “at war
With fleshly shame;”—so sang thy muse to mine,
Who tuned her chords responsive.—What more blest
Could either of us wish, than to pursue
Together the green paths of poesy,
And cultivate the fair domains of thought
Which nature had assign'd us? Of renown
And rank among our country's sons of song
Methinks we dream'd but little:—fame was not
Our idol, nor the prize for which we strove.
Our phantasy should be its own reward;
Or if we needed other, that should be
The love of woman:—we would pitch our tent
In some sequester'd valley, and there dwell—
We and two gentle beings, who would link
Their lot with ours, and in our arms repose,
And, with serene and fervent sympathy
Sharing and sweetening all our toils and cares,
Diffuse perpetual sunshine through our souls,
Which, by that warmth impregnated, should teem
With most abundant growth of noble thoughts
And lofty speculations, and rich store
Of sweet and bitter fancies.—Dreams like these
At times beguiled us, but our daily talk
Was of more serious matter;—of the laws
Which govern the mysterious heart of man;—
Of dogmas transcendental, to my ear
A theme, till then unknown, though long to thee
Familiar, and with earnest zeal explored;—
Of all the wild and wondrous world of song,
And those who hold its empire—chiefly Him
The myriad-minded;—nor were they forgot,
The mighty masters of our later day,
And Him their Coryphæus, then not yet
Enthroned, as now, on England's inmost heart,
But by a few (the true poetic Church,
As they esteem'd themselves) with earnest zeal
And somewhat of a fond idolatry
Revered, nay, almost worshipp'd.—With such themes
Were mingled yet profounder;—Truth divine
Reveal'd to erring man—Redemptive love,
In all its breadth, and length, and depth, and height,
By thee with theologic gaze intent
Contemplated;—and if from the routine
Of academic study we diverged
Too oft, and were forgetful of the claims
Of curves and squares, and parallelograms,
Cones, angles, sines and cosines, ordinates,
Abscissæ, and the like—methinks, our time,
Though sore mispent, was yet not wholly lost
In converse such as this.

Not wholly lost—
And yet my loss was grievous;—not perchance
So much for the amount of actual lore
Neglected, or of science unattain'd,
As for the loss of discipline incurr'd,
Moral and intellectual,—self-control,
And self-denial,—patience in pursuit
Of knowledge,—perseverance to surmount
Impediments—and firmness to withstand
Temptation, unacquired.—If I am now
Too much an idler—prone to leave undone
My daily task of ministerial toil,
And loiter in my study o'er some page
Of theologic trifling—or forsake
Even that for lighter reading such as charm'd
My young imagination—to those strolls
In part I owe it, which, from day to day,
We two were wont to take, in hours by right
To academic study set apart.
Pleasant they were, and pleasant was the talk
By which they were beguiled;—to me oft rich
In knowledge newly gain'd.—We walk'd and walk'd
As chance directed—by the river side
To Granchester—along the lanes which lead
To Cherry Hinton—out by Trumpington—
And Madingley, sole village from the plague
Of ugliness, in that drear land, exempt:
The Gogmagogs were conscious of our talk;
And I may say that seldom I came home
No wiser than I went.—But in the days
Of early spring, when even those treeless fields
Look'd pleasant in the sunshine, and the lanes
With constellations of bright primrose tufts
Were here and there bestudded,—when the scent
Of the cinque-spotted cowslip was exhaled
From the low meadow grass,—and in the woods
The nightingale (more fitly heard by night)
Sang lustily all day—with what a bound
Of vernal exultation forth we sprang
Into the clear, fresh air!—how recklessly,
Spurning the narrow bounds of space and time,
We rambled in the ways of our own hearts
And sight of our own eyes!—with what dispatch
Of keen and craving hunger we assail'd
Our mid-day luncheon in the village in,
Served haply by the fair domestic hands
Of her, the maid of Quy—that saint whose shrine
By many a Cantabrigian pilgrimage,
(By none more zealous or more pure than ours)
Was, in those days, frequented!—then at eve,
As, homeward bound, through the suburban streets
We wended in grotesque and careless guise—
The very tassels of our trencher caps
With cowslips interlaced,—how cheap we held
The laughter of the mob!—how little fear'd
The frown of Dean or Proctor!—then our meal
Together shared,—the savoury steak sent hot
From the cook's shop—the amber-flowing ale
Of Trinity,—the spare dessert,—the wine
With olives relish'd—and our day's discourse
Prolong'd till midnight!—College life alone
Can boast such joys as these.

Nor let me pass
Unsung, those nights and suppers of the gods—
Feasts of the hungry soul, when, at the close
Of some well argued, eloquent debate
Held in the “Union,” which with lengthen'd roar
Of cheers had shaken Petty Cury's roofs,
Startling the jaded shopman from his sleep,—
The leaders of the war on either side,
(Their strife suspended) to my neighbouring rooms
Adjourn'd, to sup on oysters.—Aid me now,
O Muse, to tell who first, who last engaged
In those keen conflicts of contending wit
And appetite as keen;—who (since renown'd
In senatorial or forensic war)
From their first proof and exercise of arms
Offensive and defensive, came to wield
Less cumbrous weapons in colloquial sport,
At those repasts, with us. First, He whose praise
This song already, though in feeble notes,
Unworthily, hath sung—he, then a youth
Fresh from Etonian discipline, well skill'd
In all her classic craft, and therewithal
Known, ere his sun in Granta's sky arose,
For many a boyish feat, unlike a boy's,
Of sparkling prose and verse,—he graced our board
With that rich vein of fine and subtle wit—
That tone of reckless levity—that keen
And polish'd sarcasm—arm'd with which he waged
A war of dexterous sword-play, wherein few
Encounter'd, none o'ercame him:—by his side
Sat One of ampler brow and ruder frame,—
A presence with gigantic power instinct,
Though outwardly, in truth, but little graced
With aught of manly beauty—short, obese,
Rough-featured, coarse complexion'd, with lank hair,
And small grey eyes,—in face (so many said)
Not much unlike myself,—his voice abrupt,
Unmusical;—yet, when he spake, the ear
Was charm'd into attention, and the eye
Forgot the visible and outward frame
Of the rich mind within; with such swift flow
Of full, spontaneous utterance the tongue
Interpreted the deep impassion'd thought,
And pour'd upon our sense exhaustless store
Of multifarious learning;—for his mind
Had been, from earliest childhood up to youth,
Insatiable of knowledge, and his brain,—
Not like a pedant's, cumber'd and confused
With ill-digested, heterogeneous hoards
Of intellectual matter, but endued
With power to shape and mould its gather'd wealth
As need suggested,—turn'd, with ready tact,
Its huge artillery on whatever point
It pleased him to assail,—and (sooth to say)
He was not over-scrupulous;—to him
There was no pain like silence—no constraint
So dull as unanimity:—he breathed
An atmosphere of argument, nor shrank
From making, where he could not find, excuse
For controversial fight:—yet when the fit
Was off him, and he gave his mind free scope
To follow Nature's bidding—who so full
Of genial thought and feeling?—who so keen
To separate truth from error—to detect
The fallacy in specious terms involved,
Or in the realms of Fiction to discern
The beautiful and just?—He was, in truth,
(So transcendental sages would affirm)
The king of Understanding—unapproach'd,
Unrivall'd in his own particular range
Of thought;—and if that range was not the first—
If there were regions into which his gaze
Pierced not—an intuition more profound
Than he affected—such deficiency
Found ample compensation in the strength
And full perfection of his actual powers,
And the quick tact which wielded them.—Meanwhile
His heart was pure and simple as a child's,
Unbreathed on by the world,—in friendship warm,
Confiding, generous, constant; and though now
He ranks among the great-ones of the earth,
And hath achieved such glory, as will last
To future generations—he, I think,
Would sup on oysters with as right good will
In this poor home of mine, as e'er he did
On Petty Cury's classical first floor
Some twenty years ago.

With him in bonds
Of mutual friendship link'd—in classic lore
His equal, though of less voracious maw,
And slower to digest what he devour'd
Of intellectual food—appear'd a youth
Of comeliest presence, though of brow, perchance,
Less lofty and projecting than the brain
Beneath it would have taught phrenologists
To look for in its owner:—grave he was,
And prone to silence; and whene'er he spake,
'Twas with a slow, sententious utterance,
As if each word that dropp'd was first well weigh'd,
And licensed to go forth;—his manner shy
And somewhat puritanical;—yet none
Possess'd a mind with richer humour fraught,
Or saw, with so acute and quick a glance,
The ludicrous in all things:—not in vain
He woo'd the Muse—with no ungraceful steps
Walk'd through the land of Fancy in its length
And in its breadth; but with more earnest love
He sought profounder lore:—his mind severe,
Patient, exact, with most tenacious grasp
Held fast, and grappled with, and overcame
Whate'er of difficult impediment
Beset his path to knowledge;—nor was truth,
Thus hardly won, less resolutely kept.
The rash vagaries of erratic thought
And venturous speculation, which seduced
More sanguine minds, ne'er raised a doubt in his,
Nor shook the deep foundations of his faith
Even for a moment.—Now, a learned man,
In professorial chair he holds his state
Didactic, and with classic lore imbues
Another generation.

Turn we next
To one but rarely, on those nights, our guest;—
To him—thy kinsman, once my schoolfellow,
And more than most of my compeers at school,
Or thy collateral kindred, to us both
By close-knit bonds united;—in those days
A comely youth, though prematurely grey,
And long ere manhood's noon upon his brow
To wear the stainless silver of old age.
Graceful he was in person and in mind,
Enrich'd with classical accomplishments,
And stores of various study—apt to learn,
And with intense susceptibility
Of soul and sense endued. Some deem'd him proud,
And in himself too confident.—In truth,
'Twas not his nature to dissemble powers
With which he had been gifted, nor the lore
To which he had attain'd; and envious men,
Who hated him for both, were prompt to blame
That which they could not imitate:—yet few
Were cast by nature in a finer mould,
Or arm'd with apprehensions more æcute,
And exquisite of beauty and of truth,
Moral and intellectual. To create
Was not his province; but his mind received,
And treasured, and retain'd, with ready tact,
The lessons by profounder minds instill'd,
Which, with expressive utterance, to the taste
And apprehensions of the world at large
He skilfully adapted.—Hence his task
Was rightly chosen, when, in after years,
He to the teaching of that Master Mind
Subjected his whole soul—content to share
The glory which must rest, in time to come,
On those outpourings of immortal thought
By his sole pen preserved, or by his toil
Collected and arranged. His was, in truth,
A proud and happy lot, to have imbibed
Those lessons, while he lived, and after death
To link his own remembrance with the name
Of Earth's profoundest Teacher:—happier still
In that his toils were sweeten'd and sustain'd
By such rich treasure of connubial wealth
As few have e'er possess'd. Not mine the task
To seize and fix the ethereal lineaments
Of that majestic spirit, which illumed
With rays intense of intellectual light,
Corporeal beauty far surpassing aught
That to the painter's, or the poet's eye,
Imagination ever yet reveal'd
Of loveliness ideal—while the heart,
Unchill'd and unsophisticate, still throbb'd
With woman's deepest love—still sympathized
With whatsoe'er of human joy or grief
Demands or merits sympathy—still shared,
With unaffected, frank simplicity,
The interests and the cares, the healthful sports,
The mingled smiles and tears, which mark the course
Of ordinary life—suggesting thus,
To the discerning and observant mind,
How far inventive phantasy falls short
Of Nature's actual handiwork!—not now—
Not in such strains as these, be her high praise
Attempted;—nor let step of mine invade,
With reckless tread, the still, sepulchral gloom
Which shrouds her recent sorrow.—For the Dead—
For Him, the gentle and the pure of heart,
The generous, the affectionate—from Earth
At life's full noon removed—for him, be tears
Of true and reverential sorrow shed!—
For Her—what more can sympathy desire
Than those divinest gifts already hers?—
Patience and faith to bear the will of Heaven,
And power, while yet on earth, to breathe in worlds
Of pure celestial thought, and cheering hope
Of future bliss, and memory of the Past,
To soothe the o'erburden'd Present.

Next appear'd,
In that superb array of noble minds,
A pale, spare man, of high and massive brow,
Already furrow'd with deep lines of thought
And speculative effort—grave, sedate,
And (if the looks may indicate the age)
Our senior some few years:—no keener wit,
No intellect more subtle, none more bold
Was found in all our host; none deeplier fraught
With stores of various learning;—but, in him,
Imagination, fancy, feeling, taste,
And reverential faith and fervent zeal
Were overlaid by huge incumbent weight
Of understanding—so, of late, defined—
The faculty which judgeth after sense.
With poesy and poets still he waged
Relentless war—deeming all such, in sooth,
Mere cumberers of the ground, or haply worse—
Despisers of plain truth—mad mountebanks,
Who led the minds of simple folk astray
By their fantastic juggleries, and drown'd
The voice of reason with their jingling rhymes.
Such craft to him was hateful;—Truth alone,
Truth tangible and palpable;—such truth
As might be weigh'd and measured,—truth deduced
By logical conclusion, close, severe,
From premises incontrovertible—
This was the mistress of his fond desire—
His first, his only love;—of aught more fair
Or wonderful he dream'd not;—nought to him
Existed, in the whole wide world of thought,
Save what could be defined, mapp'd out, survey'd,
Adjusted to his liking;—to his eye,
Whatever was ideal, seem'd untrue:
The hopes which he profess'd of earthly good
Were limited to that which he could see,
Hear, taste, or feel—ease—pleasure—all the joys
Which wait on wealth—the exercise and use
Of intellect:—in all things he appear'd
A strict utilitarian;—yet the Man
Was nobler than his creed, and though he mock'd
At things, which, to us poets, seem'd almost
The breath of human life—romantic love—
Chivalrous honour—patriotic zeal—
And loyal self-devotion—there were times
When even these very themes would kindle up
The better soul within, and he became,
Unconsciously, the enthusiast he despised.
Courteous he was and gentle, even to those
Whose intellectual rank beneath his own
Lay lowest,—and remembrance, looking back
Through twenty years, still rests upon his name,
As on a pleasant thought.

Unlike him far
In character—in intellect no less,
The pair that follows; for a pair in heart
So closely join'd, so comely each in form,
My song must not divorce;—the first, a youth,
Tall, graceful, well-proportion'd, noble-mien'd,
Tho' something in his air might have been thought
Almost effeminate,—the look of one
Who, delicately nurtured, ne'er had felt
The shocks and buffets which the world inflicts
Even on our boyish years;—and such, indeed,
Had been his earlier lot, for he was born
Heir of a wealthy house, and, from his birth
To dawning manhood, in luxurious ease
And careless affluence rear'd;—his mind untrain'd
By any rigorous discipline—unstored
With much of school-boy learning—ill prepared
(So men might think) to face the frowning world
And grapple with adversity;—and yet,
When fortune changed—as in a moment's time
She did, and hurl'd him from his pinnacle
Of prosperous expectation down almost
To a despised estate—no strongest mind
E'er bore such fall more bravely:—even like one
Who estimates this world at its true worth,
And, loving not its treasures while they last,
Laments them not departed—he address'd
His spirit to its destiny with firm
And tranquil equanimity—content
To do and suffer all the will of Heaven
In his appointed sphere.—And, to speak truth,
Tho' wealth and this world's smiles had pass'd away,
Still, in the costliest treasure Earth can yield,
He was most rich;—for one confiding heart
Still clave to him with woman's deepest love,
And pour'd into his wounds (if wounds he had)
The balm of its affection. She was one—
(That gentle maid)—a foreigner by birth,
Of humbler fortunes, who had loved him long,
But never told her love; for while the world
Look'd bright around him, and the proudest dames
Grew prouder in his smile, she durst not lift
Her heart so high as to indulge a hope
That he would think of her; but when his lot
Was darken'd, and the frivolous, false crowd
Deserted him—O then what rapturous hope
Thrill'd through her bosom, that his loss might prove
Her gain,—and she, who never could have shared
His prouder, might console his humbler lot,
And shed upon his path the tender light
Of her devoted love! Ere I threw off
The purple gown of Trinity, to don
The graduate's sable garb, their wedding day
Arrived, and I remember how they came,
A happy bride and bridegroom, to rebuke
In our own courts, or haply to stir up
To emulation of their better lot
Our Academic celibate.

But He—
The friend so like a brother—in what nook
Lies he conceal'd?—he should not be ashamed,
Methinks, to shew his face; for few have seen
A fairer one on earth;—the Nireus he
Of all our host, though rarely in this field
A combatant,—no man of wordy strife,
Or wrangling disputation, but best pleased
With mild discourse and thought contemplative,
And the luxurious witcheries of art:—
Himself a poet born, and, from a child,
With all a poet's sensibilities,
Even to excess endued:—for him, a boy,
The boisterous sports of boyhood were too rough,—
The sympathy of schoolfellows too coarse,
Save of some few like-minded with himself,
With whom he roam'd apart—to all the rest
A by-word and a laughing-stock;—now climb'd
Some favourite hill—now ranged the vernal woods
In search of wild-flowers.—With advancing youth
Such weakness had worn off, and though he still
Retain'd a woman's beauty, manly thought
Was his, and manly feeling.—Still the paths
Of quiet contemplation—the wild haunts
Of phantasy—and the mysterious realms
Of painting and of music were his choice,—
The world in which his spirit loved to dwell;
And, I believe, no truer eye than his,
No finer ear for concord of sweet sounds,
No spirit more susceptible of pain
Or pleasure from the spells of either art,
Or their diviner sister Poesy,
Was found, that day, among us. Years have since
Develop'd, and expanded, and matured
His intellectual strength:—through many a field
Of art, of science, of philosophy,
With firm and fearless step, he walks at will;
A bold, adventurous thinker, but withal
In heart and hope a Christian.

Last appears
In this long muster-roll, One o'er whose mind
Majestic, deep, imaginative, pure
From aught of worldly taint, which might debase
Or mar its noble energies, the Muse
Laments as lost;—by what mysterious bane
Of physical or mental malady
Disorder'd, none can tell; but so o'erthrown,
That genius, learning, wisdom, the rich gift
Of song, on none, in these our later days,
More bountifully lavish'd, have, in him,
Become a shapeless wreck.—May brighter days
Arise on that dark waste, and heavenly light,
Piercing its spectral gloom, create anew
The wondrous world beneath it!

But 'tis time
To change this lengthen'd scene, and bid farewell
To all its passing phantoms, though the mind
Still grasps them with a fond tenacity.
Not all in vain,—not all in vain,—I trust,
O Granta, though thy wild and wayward son,
And little heedful of the lore which thou
Best lov'st to teach thy children—not in vain
Spent I the spring and seed-time of my youth
Beneath thy reverend towers;—no slender gain
I count it to have known whom I have known,
And with the noblest spirits of my day
Beheld the dawn of manhood;—not ill timed
My sojourn in thy courts—for 'twas my lot
To know a generation nobler far
Than that which went before it—more athirst
For knowledge—more intent on loftiest schemes
And purposes of good—and if more prone
To daring speculation,—apt to tread
More venturous paths—yet purer from the stain
Of gross and sensual vice—which among those,
Our predecessors in the steep ascent
Of academic honour, still had been,
Too oft, allied with genius. 'Twas the note
And token of a scholar, in their day,
To be a jocund reveller,—to spend
The night in mad carousals,—then, perchance,
(The wineflush still upon the burning brow,)
To reel into the lecture-room;—not such
Our folly—though our follies were not few,
Nor all innocuous—for the springs of thought
Had then been newly stirr'd—and Truth, who since
Hath claim'd and won her old supremacy,
Was still at war with error, not, as now,
Unveil'd and understood.

The scene is changed;
The towers and courts of Granta disappear
With all that they contain—and lo, instead,
Green trees, and spacious lawns, and shrubbery-walks
Umbrageous, amidst which is dimly seen
A shelter'd dwelling, with thick-clustering vine
And intermingled ivy overgrown.
In front, not two miles off, majestic spires
Shoot up their tapering outline;—on the left
A castle frowns, with massive towers antique
Cresting a gentle eminence;—hard by
The Severn, scarce yet navigable, rolls
Its waters—and blue undulating hills
Sweep round the dim horizon.—'Tis a scene
On which a poet's eye may rest well pleased;
Nor lacks it such inspection.—From yon house
Even now two youthful brethren of the lyre
Look forth, and in their intervals of rest
From toil (if toil it be to court the Muse,)
Refresh their sense of beauty on that rich
And boldly varied landscape.—We have met
That pair before;—what do they in this land?—
In truth they do but little—though withdrawn
Awhile from academic conflicts dire
To this, the calm sequester'd home of one,
With high intent and purpose to devote
The livelong summer to sublime pursuit
Of science mathematical.—And now
In separate, though adjacent, rooms immured,
Each on his own peculiar task intent,
They commune with Mathesis.—Is it so?
Then hath she brought her geometric craft
To marvellous perfection—hath contrived
To measure worlds that spread beyond all space;—
Hath spann'd Imagination's boundless realm,
And ascertain'd the laws, impell'd by which
Creative thought explores its wondrous way
Even to the Heaven of Heavens.—In those two rooms
Two worlds are now contain'd—two phantom worlds,
Diverse in kind and excellence, but each
A world of beauty,—each a pleasant home
For him whose fancy framed it, (like the web
Spun by the silk-worm,) to protect and house
His spirit from the pressure of the world.
High is the theme of one;—in burning strains
He sings ideal Beauty, to his soul
Reveal'd in trance-like vision;—her he seeks,
In passionate wild flight, through all the realms
Of earth, and air, and sea—and, having found,
Leads her through fairy palaces—prepares
A home, and spreads a couch for her, amidst
The pathless clouds, beneath the green sea waves,
In woody vales, and deep secluded glens—
Infusing still into her heart of hearts
The strong enchantment of his dreamy love.
The other, less ambitious, and endued
With genius less creative, less intense,
Hath, from the beaming regions of the East
Stolen a wild-hearted Fay, with whom, at will,
He wanders through the world from night to morn,
And in her mischievous and magic feats
Finds infinite amusement;—yet his song,
Now gay, and now sarcastic—now in bursts
Of broad rough humour recklessly let loose—
Prefers to linger in the quiet haunts
Of peace and love domestic—knows no world,
In all Imagination's universe,
So blessed as a bright and blazing hearth
Surrounded by glad faces:—joyously
Those two, careering on the wings of song,
Pursue their several paths, from time to time
Relaxing their swift flight, to interchange
Encouragement and counsel, each with each.
Nor lack they recreation, such as soothes
The brain o'erwrought with toil, or by the throng
Of fancies multitudinous inflamed
To over-much excitement—gentle looks
And voices, and the pleasant intercourse
Of brothers and of sisters, shelter'd still
Beneath that roof parental, and the joy
Sedate, although expectant, calm, yet deep,
Of plighted lovers, at the altar soon
To seal their mutual vows:—what lack they more?
—That, without which, even Poesy and youth
Are cold and lifeless—the first dream of love:
Nor shall that long be wanting;—while we gaze,
The scene is changed;—they wander side by side,
Each with a beauteous girl—one ample brow'd
And eagle-eyed—the other light of heart
And simple-minded;—let them dream their dream,
Their short-lived dream of passion, while it lasts:
For theirs, in very deed, is but dream-love:
Not of the heart and will, but of the brain;
—Fantastic, fleeting, which shall pass away
Ere long, and leave the spirit all unchanged,
The fountains of affection undisturb'd,
And fresh as ever:—let them dream their dream,
Till dawn dispel the illusion:—Nobler love
Awaits them, when the fancies and wild freaks
Of youth shall have been tamed by the approach
Of sober manhood, and connubial bliss—
Calm, deep, contented, with life's daily toil
And duty intermix'd—shall put to flight
Those phantoms of unripe and restless thought;
For each, amidst the tumult and turmoil
Of worldly and unworldly cares and aims,
Erecting a sure refuge, housed wherein
The heart may take its rest, and gather strength
To bear its daily burden, and fulfil,
As best it may, the daily task imposed
By love divine on Man, that he, on Earth,
May win the crown which he shall wear in Heaven.